China has issued its latest round of import permits for scrap materials, and approved volumes remain particularly low on the plastics side.
China has issued its latest round of import permits for scrap materials, and approved volumes remain particularly low on the plastics side.
Many recycling associations are preparing for their biggest gatherings of the year, and three group leaders recently explained how China-related market disruptions will be tackled at their events.
In the course of one year, Los Angeles-area exporters cut their scrap polyethylene shipments to China by 99 percent, leaving thousands of tons of plastic looking for a home. Other countries were only able to absorb about one-fifth of the volume.
Trade tensions between the U.S. and China have come closer to directly impacting the plastics recycling industry.
Prices continue to climb for PET and HDPE containers collected at the curb, but the news wasn’t so good for mixed plastics, which have a negative value in many regions.
Readers last month were particularly interested in a prime plastic producer’s move into the recycling realm, as well as development of a $20 million plastics processing facility in the Northeast.
An initiative that has been the source of industry debate over recovery of hard-to-recycle plastic packaging is awarding $100,000 in grants to expand to more communities.
Keefe Harrison, CEO of The Recycling Partnership, at the 2016 Resource Recycling Conference.
The Recycling Partnership now has nearly 40 industry entities behind it. That raises an interesting question: How does one organization balance the needs of so many corporate backers?
A company using enzymes to break down PET into its components has successfully applied its technology to textiles.